Railway train control line adaptor plug

ABSTRACT

Railway cars having turbine or other thermal engines are oriented respecting front and rear positions of said cars, especially since there is usually a control or operator&#39;&#39;s position in one end of the car. Such cars are often arranged back-to-back with several baggage, passenger cars, or simply trailer cars interposed between these back-to-back cars with thermal engines. In order to provide, therefore, back-to-back cars each having a thermal engine to be operated from only one control position, a cross connection plug adaptor is imposed in the control lines connecting the said cars, so that one engine car is operated in a given direction and the other engine car, being in relative back-to-back relation thereto, is driven in a direction relatively opposite to the given direction, resulting in aiding the net direction of the railway car train. The plug adaptor is essentially a set of conductors crossing from one position to an opposite given position.

Pelabon Mar. 4, 1975 RAILWAY TRAIN CONTROL LINE ADAPTOR PLUG [76] Inventor: Andre E. Pelabon, 68 Avenue Henri Martin, Paris 16, France [22] Filed: Apr. 13, 1973 [21] Appl. No.: 350,809

[52] US. Cl. 105/1 R, 105/26 R, 105/61, 213/13, 307/9, 339/10 [51] Int. Cl..... B6ld 49/00, B61g 5/06, H01r 33/00 [58] Field of Search 105/1 A, l R, 26 R, 61; 213/13, 1.6; 307/9; 339/10 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 967,681 8/1910 Sloan 339/10 1,216,057 2/1917 Boirault 2l3/l.3

1,319,311 10/1919 Tomlinson 2l3/1.6 1,353,557 9/1920 Averill et a1. 213/l.6 1,985,638 12/1934 Kerr, Jr. et a1. 307/9 2,534,898 1.2/1950 Burkhart et al... 307/9 2,563,571 8/1951 Woods 307/9 2,883,069 4/1959 Candlin, Jr. et al. 2l3/1.3 3,499,545 3/1970 Cope et al. 213/13 Primary E.\'aminerM. Henson Wood, Jr. Assistant Examiner-Howard Beltran [57] ABSTRACT Railway cars having turbine or other thermal engines are oriented respecting front and rear positions of said cars, especially since there is usually a control or operators position in one end of the car. Such cars are often arranged back-to-back with several baggage, passenger cars, or simply trailer cars interposed between these back-to-back cars with thermal engines. In order to provide, therefore, back-to-back cars each having a thermal engine to be operated from only one control position, a cross connection plug adaptor is imposed in the control lines connecting the said cars, so that one engine car is operated in a given direction and the other engine car, being in relative back-toback relation thereto, is driven in a direction relatively opposite to the given direction, resulting in aiding the net direction of the railway car train. The plug adaptor is essentially a set of conductors crossing from one position to an opposite given position.

5 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures PATENTEDKAR' M915 sum 2 or 2 RAILWAY TRAIN CONTROL LINE ADAPTOR PLUG CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED INFORMATION AND REFERENCES This application for patent is copending with at least the following related applications concurrently filed herewith:

Ser. No. 350,807 for Gas Turbine Self-Propelled Railway Train; Ser. No. 350,814 for Fuel Feeding System for Thermal Engines Using Two Fuels; and Ser. No. 350,8l6 for Safety Cut-Off System for a Circuit Supplied by Two Alternators.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to providing an adapter for crossing conductor lines in electric wiring and control circuits, and more particularly, the invention relates to and is directed to means for crossing conductor lines or position-reversal of electric control lines for thermal engines and other apparatus so that, given a single control position in one of two spatially related cars of a train, the train car may be operated to propel in the same direction the cars having the thermal engines. In the art of electric control systems, this may be referred to as so-called crossed conductor lines."

FIELD OF THE INVENTION Trains are constructed either to have prime moving means such as thermal engines and auxiliary apparatus, or to have passenger carrying or baggage and freight carrying capabilities. The thermal engine cars each have a single operating position and when a train is made up, they usually have each end having a thermal engine car in which the operating or control positions are distal from each other, i.e. they are arranged so that the train is driven with the operator having full view from the given front end of the train and the other operator position is closed down, rendered inoperative and is unattended.

In making up a train of cars, it may be required to be done fast and without involving complicated disassemblage of control elements and in a manner to eliminate all safety hazards from being introduced into the operation of synthesizing a train of cars during the performing or making of given electrical control connections. During this operation, it is desired therefore to provide for the plugging in of the electrical connections into the normal circuit so that a given operator in an operator position can assume without any mental step that the control is for proceeding in a given direction and that given control knobs, levers or the like, are for control of the thermal engine; while other fixed control knobs, levers, etc., are for control of the thermal engine at the other end of the train, and in aiding relation to the thermal engine the operator is driving. This is essentially and notably the case that, for example, arises in the connection of railway vehicle train or railway cars.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is a purpose, object and advantage of the present invention to provide a crossed extension adaptor for enabling a forward and rear oriented vehicle to operate conjointly and to have their conductor wires appropriately cross-connected and for enabling the use of standard connectors connecting up the several pieces of apparatus. The adaptor requires the use of arranging the wires therein as crossed-conductors.

The connection between separate railway cars is made on each side of the walkway or passageway and, thus by means of the invention, redundancy and complete operating safety and equipment security are achieved as another object of the invention.

It is a further object of the invention to enable by use of thecross-lines and adaptor means fast operation in shifting from the normal circuit to the crossed circuit arrangement and back to a normal circuit arrangement, as may be desired.

An additional object of the invention is to enable by means of the adaptor for the use of standard electrical connections.

Another feature of the invention is that it consists merely of an extension of a two-part box having a front part fitting into a standard electric plug and the back or other part allowing for fitting into a standard plug and secured into locking relation therewith by a cam means.

A further object of the invention is to provide an adaptor or box in which a front part is maintained in place by a device present on the plug.

It is an additional object and feature of the invention to construct an adaptor having within it connections for reversals of current effected in accordance with the electrical connection suitable for the purpose of transposing the application of signals, current polarity, or other orientation of data to a rear vehicle to provide thereby for the proper transposition of data effectively for use by the front car operator.

BRIEFDESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon full consideration of the following detailed description and accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic sketch of a plurality of railway vehicles connected by electrical cables and in which a pair of vehicles is interconnected by adaptors between one set of the vehicles in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of an adaptor.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawings, there is shown a series of railway vehicles consisting of end cars 12,12 and intermediate cars 14,14, and 15. In each of the end cars is a control operator position 16,16 and a load means 18,18 marked, respectively, M and N which may be a motor, control means for a thermal engine or an electric engine. Each of the railway vehicles 10 has a set of electrical conductors 11 extending from one end of the cars 12,14 to the other, in which the set of conductors each terminates in a male plug 20 at one end and a female plug 22 at the other end. Also there is a set of redundant male and female plugs 24,26, and the redundant set of plugs is connected to the set of conductors 19. The connections include flexible cables 46 between each pair of cars.

The operator in the control position 16 is able to orient himself with respect to the forward orientation of the vehicle, and he may control in proper orientation the load device M or N as a prime or main control load when it is proximate to or within the same vehicle 12 as he is; and by means of the cross-connections in the adaptor, the distal load device M or N, as the case may be, is connected onto the control panel and shown thereon as an auxiliary or remote load device. it is thus possible to perform the electrical circuit connections from either end of the train so that the operator always looks to or is oriented by the control position panel as he is to move in the forward direction; and where the load device M or N is a thermal or electric engine, the direction of movement is, for example, forward in the relation to the operator position in use and, for example, the other lead device is in a reverse direction. Normally, this transpositioning of the indicating instrument at the respective control positions is accomplished by a crossing, or transpositioning the circuit wiring in one of the cars in the train, indicated schematically at 25, by a reversal of two of the conductors 11 in car 15, but if this particular car is removed for repairs, or for changing the makeup of the train, this wiring change must be done in another way, such as by an adapter plug. in case the car 15, containing the crossing circuit 25, is removed, such as for repair, a pair of adaptors 30, (see FIG. 2) containing a crossing circuit equivalent to the one schematically indicated at 25, is inserted between the respective sets of plugs 20,22 and 24,26 when the remaining cars 14,14 are coupled together. While only three wires are shown in circuits 11 and 19, for the sake of simplicity, it will be understood that due to the number of instruments and controls at each of control positions '16 to be reversed, there may be between 20 and 40 wires in the circuit carried between cars by cables 46 and plugs 20,22 and 24,26. One preferred embodiment of adaptor plug involves some 37 wires.

The details of the adaptor 30 include female connector sockets 36 for receiving the projecting contacts of male connector means 20 and a cross-connection section 38 where conductors are cross-connected so that position reversal of wires is achieved in relationto the operation of the load devices 18,18. The crossconnection conductors are terminated in connector pins 40 for receiving a female plug 22 (not shown in FIG. 2) for completing the set of conductors 11 and 19 connecting the vehicles 12,12; 14,14 shown in FIG. 1. Redundant connection of vehicle plugs 24,26 is completed by flexible cables 46. The set of conductors 47 is mounted in insulating boards or units 48 at each end of the cross-connection section 38 in the well-known fashion of making connector and insulation units.

The adaptor 30 is held in place by a blocking device with which the plug 20 is equipped similar to an adaptor cam apparatus 50, in which the blocking device is secured into place much as the cam apparatus 50 secures a mating female plug into the male adaptor plug 40. The cam apparatus 50 includes twin arm elements 52 pivotally connected to pivots 54 and having clamp elements 56 for engaging and retaining projections 58 within the claws 60 by friction engagement or biasing 4 means. The twin arm elements 52 are interconnected by handle shaft 64.

The unit forming the adaptor 30 forms a single piece with its back part provided with bolt means 66 for maintaining the cross-connection section 38 secure and closed by bolt and nut arrangement 68 for use in facilitating the ease of wiring the insulating units through the cross-connection section 38 of the adaptor, and for providing absolutely reliable waterproofing and moisture proofing for the adaptor.

Additional embodiments of the invention in this specification will occur to others and therefore it is intended that the scope of the invention be limited only by the appended claims and not by the embodiment described hereinabove. Accordingly, reference should be made to the following claims in determining the full scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. in a railway train of the type normally having at least three cars coupled together, each of the endmost cars containing a train propulsion prime mover and an engineers control station including indicators and control instruments for operatingthe train from either one of said control stations, the indicators and control instruments at both stations and the prime movers in both endmost cars being interconnected by electrical conductors extending throughout the length of the train and including interconnecting male and female plug connectors between each car, and wherein a third car normally coupled in the train between the endmost cars includes circuit modifying means for transposing certain of said conductors so that the indicators and control instruments at each of said control stations will present a similar array with regard to the prime mover in that car and the prime mover at the far end of the train, the improvement which comprises an adaptor plug for insertion between a male and female plug between adjacent cars when said third car is removed from the train, said adaptor plug including circuit modifying means similar to that of said removed third car.

2. The invention defined in claim 1, wherein said adaptor plug includes oppositely disposed end faces, one of said faces having a plurality of female circuit connectors, the other face having a similar plurality of male circuit connectors.

3. The invention defined in claim 2, wherein said circuit modifying means comprises electrical conductors connected between a female connector and a dissimilarly oriented male connector of said adaptor plug.

4. The invention defined in claim 3, wherein the end faces of the adaptor plug are disposed in angularly related planes.

5. The invention defined in claim 4, wherein said adaptor plug includes manually operable camming means rotatable about a transverse axis for engagement with means on a coacting plug for releasably retaining the adaptor plug in place. 

1. In a railway train of the type normally having at least three cars coupled together, each of the endmost cars containing a train propulsion prime mover and an engineer''s control station including indicators and control instruments for operating the train from either one of said control stations, the indicators and control instruments at both stations and the prime movers in both endmost cars being interconnected by electrical conductors extending throughout the length of the train and including interconnecting male and female plug connectors between each car, and wherein a third car normally coupled in the train between the endmost cars includes circuit modifying means for transposing certain of said conductors so that the indicators and control instruments at each of said control stations will present a similar array with regard to the prime mover in that car and the prime mover at the far end of the train, the improvement which comprises an adaptor plug for insertion between a male and female plug between adjacent cars when said third car is removed from the train, said adaptor plug including circuit modifying means similar to that of said removed third car.
 2. The invention defined in claim 1, wherein said adaptor plug includes oppositely disposed end faces, one of said faces having a plurality of female circuit connectors, the other face having a similar plurality of male circuit connectors.
 3. The invention defined in claim 2, wherein said circuit modifying means comprises electrical conductors connected between a female connector and a dissimilarly oriented male connector of said adaptor plug.
 4. The invention defined in claim 3, wherein the end faces of the adaptor plug are disposed in angularly related planes.
 5. The invention defined in claim 4, wherein said adaptor plug includes manually operable camming means rotatable about a transverse axis for engagement with means on a coacting plug for releasably retaining the adaptor plug in place. 